Some context:
I’m young, and I have always helped out my parents in our small family business, but a few years ago, at the beginning of 2020, while my Pops and I were working the shop, we got robbed and gunned down, so we both ended up physically impaired, and since my mom was already managing another location that we had opened up, we had to rely on hiring someone external to handle the shop. My brother, who owns his own business, decided to pass on to us his own employee, telling us how he’s a trustworthy guy and all that, so we took his word for it.
Fast-forward to the beginning of 2023, after multiple surgeries my physical health and mobility are starting to improve, and I feel well enough to start keeping a closer eye on the family business, well right from the get go, the employee starts acting suspicious, acting all apprehensive and closed off, impeding my progress on checking up on the inventory and stuff like that, my folks and I didn’t think much of it at first since he’s always been kind of an eccentric person, but he’s just been a pain to work with all year, and my Mom and I had enough and installed more cameras with audio recording a few weeks ago without his knowledge, because ever since he arrived, some cameras go out of line from time to time, and boy o boy did we unravel a big pile of cr… well you know, turns out he vehemently despises us, there isn’t a single moment of the day he isn’t talking well let’s just put it, in a less than desirable way, seriously the foul mouth he has when referring to us would even make a Tarantino film blush.
But we thought, “Hey, at least he ain’t stealing from us”, but no, he is. At least a few times during the day he pockets money from the register, and other times he hides the money in the shop so he can take it out later, and what’s sending me over the hedge is that he is very buddy-buddy with a lot of low-profile criminals in the area, and in one instance while he was talking with one of them, the conversation went like this:
Man, your boss really became a dum… after getting shot, didn’t he?
Nah, he and his dad were already dum… before that, the bullets were to straighten them out.
So that got me and my mom thinking, the guy in the 7 years he worked for my brother always got robbed while in the shop like every other month, so we’re starting to think that all those robberies were planned by him, because it ain’t no damn coincidence that the guys that robbed me and my Pops had robbed him specifically a week before, and he got off without a scratch while we got gunned down.
Now you might be thinking, “Why didn’t we put the new cameras way earlier than just a few weeks ago?” Well, it’s because we trusted him and took my brother’s word for it, and we didn’t reach a boiling point until a few weeks ago, but now that we know who he really is, all of his previous attitudes and actions make sense now.
So what I’m asking you, fine folks, is, what actions can I take? Because it’s blatantly obvious that he was also robbing my brother in the 7 years he worked for him and in the 3 years he worked for us, unfortunately all of those recordings are pretty much lost since the security system recycles its storage after a couple of weeks, and we want to nail him good, jail time, and with no possibility of him suing or anything like that, we now have recordings of him pocketing the money from like 3 weeks now, but we fear that it might not be enough, or can a pattern of behavior be established with this?
I need advice, guys.
🧎♂️for your enemy and send em to 🛐
Fire him now. Thats all. Cut your losses. And get more cameras and a alarm & permit that calls the police.
Call the cops
I’m a lawyer and if you were my client, I’d walk you into the police station and sit down with a detective.
Probably best to consult an attorney in your area, and speak to law enforcement to see what your options are and what evidence they need to sink him.
You need to call the police about the stuff you have evidence of.
Typical responses here:
If you had a manager he wouldn’t have robbed you. Ur fault.
If you gave him equity he wouldn’t steal. Employees are inherently shit so we have to give them equity (but no risk) to get them to not rob and shoot us.
You suck at taking accountability of your assets and that helped create this situation. You sell a product/service and receive payment in cash/check/ card. You should know how much money starts out in the register at the beginning of the day and ends in the register at the end of the day, along with what you received from card/check. You should also be keeping track of what was sold and how many. You then look at the numbers to make sure everything matches and you don’t have cash missing from the register.
You need to fix that and go to the police. You’ve had this going on for over 10 years and didn’t catch it, maybe you should talk to another attorney and get their opinion. How can you be sure your attorney isn’t somehow involved/incompetent?
Also, if you lose recordings from your “security system” periodically it would have been a great idea to copy/save it somewhere else, which you should also start doing going forward.
Would absolutely fire and talk with a prosecuting attorney to see what charges to proceed with. Terribly sorry.
Also hire an excellent bookkeeper to do a deep dive into your books. That will help prove history of theft and damages.
Let me get this straight, both you and your dad were robbed, shot and survived, then ended up hiring the guy who arranged the shooting. Then this guy managed to steal about $100 per day for 3 years from you guys without it showing up in your bookkeeping or any other detectable place.
Then, in spite of the fact that this probably added up to about 25k per year, your lawyer told you that it wasn’t enough to qualify for grand larceny and you have to wait for him to steal more.
On top of all that, you had a recording of him admitting to arranging the shooting but you somehow forgot to make a backup of it? That’s not even going into this guy’s motivation for arranging the shooting of the dad and brother of his employer was . . . to straighten the two of you out because . . . .
Okay, kid, you fooled a whole lot of adults here. You have a bright future in corporate America. Now get back to your homework.
Contact your attorney, and let them know you want to press charges. Don’t wait on this, do it now. If you can call the police non-emergency number and let them know you have an employee stealing cash and want to press charges. See if they will get involved to arrest him. If not, don’t wait. Fire this guy tomorrow. Get them out of your life before he can damage your store any more. And start hiring, also now.
I would just cut my losses and tell the employee that the business is not paying enough to cover an extra employee and that you’re going to have to run it solo for a while. Then just give him his walking papers. I wouldn’t make accusations that may cause resentment especially if his friends may be of questionable character. It may cause more trouble than it will be worth. One thing is for certain he has to go.
Damnnnn.
Sorry to hear this OP I am glad you and your dad are alive
Now it makes sense - the robot registers in Japan. Staff don’t handle money (like 711, clinics, some restaurants, my salon etc) . Robots don’t get tempted and steal. And they don’t make mistakes either. .
I think you have evidence . Don’t let him know that you do. Act as usual.
If he’s stealing from you then fire him. What are you even talking about?